Thus William Adolphus Turnpike, office boy, to Lucien Torrance, who held a similar exalted position. They were sitting on the front stairs leading to the adjoining offices occupied by Mr. Whimple and his friend Simmons, the architect, in the city of Toronto. The city was then at the transition period; its population had just passed the 200,000 mark, and already included a fair number of lunatics who clamored for a million people. But it had not yet made up its mind that dumping sewage into the Bay and believing that it would not contaminate the adjoining lake, whence came the water supply, was a system apt to result in a large proportion of typhoid fever cases. People had typhoid, and either died of it or got better, and in the latter event they resumed the drinking of the city water. CHAPTER II William had engaged himself to work for Mr. Charles Whimple, "barrister, etc.," just one week previously in response to that gentleman's advertisement for "a bright and intelligent office boy; one who knows the city well." When he arrived at the office on the morning after the insertion of the advertisement, Whimple found William busily engaged in dusting off the lone table in his room. At the back of the office, with its small, very small, ante-room, was the office of his friend, Simmons, and as he was usually down an hour earlier than Whimple, he "opened up" and kept an eye on things for the barrister until he arrived. As Whimple entered, William greeted him with a cheery "Good-morning, Mr. Whimple." "Good-morning, what are you doing here?" "I'm your office boy." "You are----" "Sure," said William cheerily, "I sent the other bunch away." "The other bunch----" "Yep; say, Mr. Whimple----" "But just a minute," Mr. Whimple interrupted, "how did you know my name? Have we met before?" "Search me--if we did we wasn't interduced." "Then how did you know?" William stopped dusting and regarded him thoughtfully. "How did you know?" Whimple repeated. "I always know," the boy repeated slowly, and then, as though communing with himself, "yes, I always know," and, as to-day, there was that in William's voice that haunted and held Whimple, as it has done many since. But that comes later. William went on still dusting slowly. "Say, Mister Whimple, I mayn't be much, but the rest of the gang was the greatest c'lection er mutts you ever seen. Honest, I don't believe there was one of 'em could say the alphabet without thinking ten minutes first. And I needed the job most anyway." "How do you know?" "Because I looked 'em over good, and I heard 'em saying how many hours' work they'd do a day and how much they wanted for it, and most of 'em was saying about how they showed their other bosses what's what. So I knew they didn't want a job; they just wanted a place to bum in. You should'er heard me shooing 'em away. I told 'em you had made your selection and I was IT."